Cuneus and Muschenbrock, in Leyden (Netherlands), discovered the Leyden jar in
1745. The first electrical
capacitor - a storage
mechanism for an
electrical charge. The first ones were
a glass jar filled with water-two wires suspended in the
water.
Muschenbrock got such a shock out of the first
jar he experimented with that he nearly died.

Later, the
water was replaced with metal foils wrapped so that
there was insulation between the layers of foil-the two
wires are attached to the ends of the sheets of foil.

Musschenbroek working
with Leyden jar

Video : Musschenbroek Leyden jar

Read more on history,
origin and development of electronics and technology and some great
inventions and contribution of some of the greatest scientists and
inventors of all times.

James Clerk Maxwell
(1831 - 1879) wrote a mathematical
treatise formalizing the theory of fields in 1856: On
Faraday's Lines of Force. In the year 1873
Maxwell published Electricity and
Magnetism, demonstrating four partial differential equations
that completely described electrical phenomena. Read More onInventions and
Contribution of James Clerk Maxwell
to
Electronics

Thomas Alva Edison
(1847 - 1931): In 1878, Edison began work
on an electric lamp and sought a material that could be electrically
heated to incandescence in a vacuum. 1882
Edison installed the first large central power station on Pearl
Street in New York City in 1882; its steam-driven generators of 900
horsepower provided enough power for 7,200 lamps. Read More onInventions and
Contribution of Thomas Alva Edison
to Electronics